Lint

So our laundry room is right off the kitchen, separated by a door.  Usually the door stays shut while laundry is going to minimize noise.  I opened the door and walked in there this afternoon to change out the laundry and it smelled like something had burned.  My heart thudded, and I immediately wrenched open the dryer, which had finished its cycle and was not running, expecting to find burned clothing, but it seemed fine aside from the smell.  I pulled out the lint trap and it was fine, too, aside from the smell.  I was kind of stumped, trying to figure out why it smelled so bad, and determined that maybe it was the motor or something that had gone out.  Well.  When Brad got home, he pried off the front cover of the washer (that I didn't even know you could pry off!) and found this.  See the gray and white fluff?  That's normal lint.  It's about a half inch thick, over the entire bottom of the dryer casing.  How does it get in there?!  See the black?  That's lint that has been burned--not just from heat, but fire.  Yep.  A large portion of the bottom of the dryer flash fired.  I was smelling burned fibers.  So scary. 

 

I read a blog several months ago during the summer that was written by a firefighter's wife.  She talked about how a large percentage of house fires are caused by dryers, and that you should never run your dryer when you're not in the house, and never while you are sleeping.  So after reading that, I have since not been able to put it out of my mind, so I stopped the dryer every time I left the house and didn't turn it on if I was heading to bed.  Then, the one time there really WAS a fire in the dryer, I had no weird thoughts at all!

 

We debated getting someone to come and check it out, but finally decided that if there was open flame flashing across the entire bottom, there could very well be wires that were damaged as well.  Not going to risk it, so we'll go get a new one.  And then I'll need to wash that load again!  I hope the smell comes out.